Oh NancyBoston, MA

Artist's Statement

Concept

Oh Nancy is a vehicle for artists, providing them with a narrative structure that facilitates collaboration and multiple authorship. Artistic endeavors evolve organically out of this process and become interdependent. Histories within these works are constructed and layered to embrace various versions of one narrative blueprint; one that utilizes contradiction, coincidence and symbolism.

Intent

Our intent is to build alternate myths around quintessential American institutions, which have their own legends, characters and controversies. An emphasis is placed on real world commentary by exploiting the tabloid aspects of evangelist theatre and sports scandal. This comes at a time when our craving for a black and white world of absolutes (where words such as ‘hero’, ‘justice’, and ‘evil’, pervade the national rhetoric) is ever-strong amidst the backdrop of economic insecurity and international conflict. We believe that we can fictionalize these real subjects and reinterpret them while maintaining their context in order to bring to life this surrogate universe. This "self-sustaining fiction" will thrive off of anyone who participates in it, including both artist and viewer.

Narrative

Our current work focuses on our fabricated football team, known as the ‘Corn Team’. The ‘Corn Team’ is an elite group of model citizens. They represent success, reliability, toughness and greatness. The community in which they exist is made up of two very distinct classes. There is the religious ruling class of the Corn Alliance and the Corn Team itself. The second, less fortunate group, is made up of the working class. They are the backbone of this community and their lives are heavily influenced by their faith. Their religion centers around ideas such as self-sacrifice, humility, communal living, obedience, and conformity. These beliefs are dictated to them directly by the town's spiritual leader, founder, and father figure, believed by many to be the living embodiment of an ancient and mysterious deity, The One Corn.

The Corn Team is the town's famed and beloved football team. They act as a valuable propaganda tool for the Corn Alliance, posing as the caretakers of the community as well as a morally infallible force of justice. The Corn Team is the pride of the townspeople and garner their unwavering respect. The Corn Team is, in part, a separate entity from the Corn Alliance. With their stellar reputation and national popularity as stars on and off the gridiron, The Corn Team has drawn attention to itself and what would otherwise be overlooked as a radical cult phenomenon. Soft satire compliments this surreal fandom, where an enthusiastic appreciation for sports and religious fervor form a single practice. Individual players are deified, popular cheers or chants become prayers and dirges, there are pre-game fasts and half-time offerings as well as hot dogs, popcorn, and all American watered-down beer.